


Aftershocks and Beyond

by ellewriter



Category: NCIS: New Orleans
Genre: (also like i only have a vague plan so please manage all expectations here), F/F, I love y'all, listen i've basically been writing this fic in my head since these two first interacted okay, the slowest of slow burns (until i lose my patience at least), this is for the seven other shippers out there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2019-07-02 04:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15789099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellewriter/pseuds/ellewriter
Summary: The slow burn Percy and Gregorio romance we all deserved.





	1. After the Aftershocks

“I can’t keep investigating you if I let you get killed, right?"

With a groan, Tammy collapsed onto the bed in her hotel room, replaying the events of the day in her head as she sunk into the scratchy comforter beneath her. The shooting, the impulsive shoulder touch, and the tiredness she felt to her bones. She wasn’t sure if her exhaustion was from catching the sniper, dealing with Agent Pride and his band of angry agents, or just living under the sheer weight of New Orleans humidity. She had not missed that part of the city, that’s for sure.

Still, there was something interesting about being back. The feel of the streets. The back and forth with NCIS. If she were the kind of person to let her feelings get involved, she might have even felt bad for the team she was investigating. There was something about them.

Something about one agent in particular.

Still, as she listened to the buzz of a mosquito that had somehow gotten into her hotel room, Tammy could not wait to get back to D.C.


	2. Suspicious Minds, Tired Heart

“I still can’t believe Brody left,” Sonja said, trailing her fingers down the side of the condensation covered bottle on the bar in front of her. The band at Pride’s bar that night was performing some blues standard, the down beat of the piano and the weary crooning of the singer fitting right in with her mood. It had been a hell of a week. Merri abandoning them. This bratty FBI agent investigating them. And whatever this weirdness was with LaSalle. It was too much. 

“I still can’t believe the FBI is staying down here,” LaSalle said, shaking his head. Miss Loretta let out an emphatic mhm in agreement, swaying slightly to the beat of the music.

“It’s ridiculous.” Sonja rolled her eyes as she took a drink. As if the team would ever knowingly hide a mole. She couldn’t help reliving the insulting questions of the agents that interrogated them that day. The sting of Merri leaving was still too fresh. And here comes this New York know-it-all rubbing salt in the wound.

_“Are you kidding me?”_

_“Am I smiling?”_

_“Sometimes it’s hard to tell.”_

Just thinking about Agent Gregorio raised Sonja’s blood pressure. Shaking the tension out of her shoulders, Sonja pushed thoughts of the FBI and the case out her mind, focusing on Sebastian’s rambling rant about some new forensic technology. Once he had a drink or two in him, he was even harder to follow, but she found his enthusiasm endearing now. Just like she found these moments in the bar with the team more relaxing than she could have imagined. She wanted to be in this moment. This was her family. And she’d be damned if she let anyone else mess that up


	3. (Wo)man on Fire

As she waited for the coffee maker in her hotel to finally gurgle to a stop, Tammy rolled out a sore spot in her shoulder and half listened to the news buzzing from the old alarm clock by the bed. It was kind of hard to focus on the steady drone of weather reports and budget deficits in Washington when she had a whole New Orleans day ahead of her. And not any New Orleans day—a first day with NCIS kind of day.

It was still strange to think about. Sure, Agent Pride had just offered her to imbed with the team twelve hours ago, but things moved faster in NOLA than she had expected. It left her head spinning and a hint of apprehension in the pit of her stomach. She was still FBI. Still leaving—thank god—when this Ciudad Natal business was finally wrapped up. But something about working in such close quarters with this team concerned her. She wasn’t here to make connections. To get emotionally involved. She was here to do a job.

And with the way she’d seen this team operate so far, Tammy wasn’t sure that this wouldn’t make doing her job a whole lot harder.

So no.

She wouldn’t get emotionally involved.

No matter how much being back in New Orleans secretly dug at her.

 

* * *

“You keep your weapon in a file cabinet?”

“A locked file cabinet.”

Tammy honestly did not know how to respond to that.

Barely holding back a sigh, she brushed out a wrinkle in her blouse. As if that could make the mess of a morning she’d had since leaving her hotel make any more sense. The NCIS office was… well, a disaster. Of course, there were the things she had noticed when she first started investigating them, but being close quarters, working with them instead of against them, was revealing. Guns in cabinets. Lamps with no lampshades—just bare bulbs (she’d had spots in her eyes for a full minute after accidentally glancing over at it earlier). Computer monitors zip tied to a pile of books. Sure, necessity was the mother of invention, but this seemed extreme.

And, why, _why_ did they leave the door to the office open all of the time?

And, of course, there were the people. LaSalle, who seemed a bit too good ole’ boy for her taste. Percy, who barely tried to conceal her disdain whenever Tammy opened her mouth—in fact, she had been worried for a second that she was going to physically remove her from her desk when she’d walked in this morning. And Patton, whose methods seemed extralegal at best.

They were reckless. And emotional. And how they managed to solve any crimes was beyond her understanding.

* * *

_Who does she think she is?_

That was all Sonja could think as Gregorio tried to commandeer their crime scene, her tone dripping condescension as she spoke. Eyes scanning the arena, listening to the bickering next to her, Sonja couldn’t help but feel a stab of anger at Pride, too. He had let this outsider—who had literally been investigating them not five minutes ago—onto their team, into their house. Her thick voice and condescending questions got on Sonja’s nerves. Made her want to cross her arms and sink back into her heels, give her as good as she got.

It was like this throughout the day. A presumptuous remark. An arched eyebrow. A moment of eye contact just long enough to get the point across.

Until, suddenly, grudgingly, she found herself saying, “She’s right.” Supporting her plan, her judgement.

Until, suddenly, surprisingly, she found herself wondering how Gregorio was when she disappeared after the case had gone horribly, heartbreakingly wrong. 

* * *

 _You fucked up. You fucked up. You fucked up._   

The thought alone drowned out the drone of the bugs, the laughter of the tourists blocks away, and the strength of any other thought she could have.

She hadn’t let herself feel anything in so long that the pressure of the guilt prying at the cracks in her armor terrified her. But she supposed she could only run from so many things at a time.

And so she sank further into the creaky patio chair and let an inch, just an inch, of what she felt, along with Pride’s honesty, creep in.


	4. Course Correction

“Nope, definitely not.”

Sonja shook her head as she pushed off the corner of LaSalle’s desk, tearing up the job application of yet another dud. She heard LaSalle sigh as he leaned back in his chair, the seat squeaking just slightly as always.

“You read my mind,” he said, still gazing out the door where their last failed interviewee had left, over confident as he’d been when they were quizzing him on standard crime scene procedures. “Too uptight and too eager.” 

“And too… male.”

“Sexist.” LaSalle scoffed, glancing over at his partner. She just raised an eyebrow and shrugged, challenging him to say anything else.

“A little balance around here wouldn’t hurt. You know, I really miss my girl time.”

Things had been a little too masculine in the office since Brody had left, and while she still wouldn’t call Gregorio a friend, it _had_ been nice to have another woman around the office. Even if she was a little too smug and a little too… distracting sometimes.

It had been a couple of weeks and several late evenings of paperwork since Gregorio had imbedded with their team, and they’d settled into a bit of a routine. Not quite friends, but not enemies anymore either. Plus, now she knew she was human, had seen through her shell of “I don’t let emotions interfere with my work” just the tiniest fraction, which made it a little harder to hate her on sight.

“Who was that?” Gregorio called out now, breezing into the office as if Sonja’s thoughts had conjured her.

“Interviewing for Brody’s replacement,” LaSalle said. “Unless you’re planning on staying around?”

“Ha, over my dead body.”

“Well, good morning to you too,” Sonja said, ignoring the twinge she felt as she moved the chair their latest over eager lieutenant had been sitting in. She listened as their back and forth went on for a while longer, a kind of morning routine they had fallen into. Gregorio scribbling a to do list on a post-it note, LaSalle’s drawl a little heavier from his Official Interviewer Voice, and Sonja leaning against the desk, throwing a few words out when needed. There was still an undercurrent of tension with the cartel business going on and the DOJ pressuring them to expand their team. But it was getting easier, more familiar, as they traded words and info and taunts until eventually all their phones let out a buzz and it was time to get down to business. It was almost… normal.

 

* * *

 

“She’s not growing on you, is she?”

Sonja rolled her eyes as she and LaSalle made their way through the bright hallways to Miss Loretta’s office later that day, having circled back to the looming threat of finding a new agent for the team. All she’d said was she wanted someone _like_ Gregorio. You know, smart, takes no shit, a _woman._

“I said someone _like_ her. Besides, she doesn’t want to stick around anyway.”

She shrugged it off, ignoring LaSalle’s side eye.

But a part of her could admit that she had a grudging respect for the other agent. She might even miss her when she was gone.

 

* * *

 

“You’re not getting sea sick, are you?”

Tammy could barely contain her grimace as she and Agent Pride continued to motor the airboat across the water, the sound of the fan behind her almost as deafening as the grumbling in her stomach.

This certainly wasn’t anything she’d ever done before in the FBI.

Somehow, mercifully, though she scraped through the rest of the day. Flashes of it all skimming across her memory—the forensics guy rambling on (a “lovable quirk” according to Percy), Percy and LaSalle bickering good naturedly, and Pride pushing her just enough to make her nervous.

Maybe letting her guard down, even imperceptibly, the week before last wasn’t such a good idea. She had so much to hide. Even when she thought she was safe, even all these years later, McKinley continued to haunt her. She was exhausted.

So maybe that was why she found herself at Pride’s bar again that night.

She needed to know.

Needed to see if this changed anything.

Even if she didn’t want to admit to herself that that possibility made her nervous.

And so, in the glow of the bar lights, the floors creaking as Pride moved chairs around and did the regular preparations for the evening, she wasn’t too surprised when he finally showed his hand. His tone measured, considering, as if he was waiting to see her reaction.

“Last I heard McKinley’s still on the run,” he said now, his gaze not wavering.

“Yep. Me too, in my own way.”

Admitting it out loud was a bit surreal. A bit too honest. But the words were out there. The possibility of being turned against, being judged, laying there in the middle of the two agents, a game waiting to be played out.

“Aren’t you tired of running?”

His question was a challenge issued so gently, so thoughtfully that Tammy felt herself being honest for the second time in a row. Her voice softer. 

“Yes, I am.”

If you had told her a month ago—hell, even that morning—that she’d end her evening holding back tears in Pride’s bar, finally, _finally_ , leaning into her exhaustion, her pain? Well, she would’ve thought you were as crazy as the idea that New Orleans would grow on her again.


	5. One Good Man

Another few weeks passed, Pride keeping his word and his silence about McKinley to the rest of the team, and Tammy could almost see herself relaxing into a new kind of normal. Bickering with LaSalle, briefing Percy on cases, getting used to Sebastian’s tangents and earnestness. Still, she reminded herself, it was best not to get too invested. And while she told herself she was keeping her walls up, keeping her emotions from getting entangled in the weird family dynamics of the team, she found herself reading texts over LaSalle’s shoulder, almost smiling when Percy got in a good joke at his expense, being drawn to Pride’s bar for a drink every now and then.

But still. She was leaving the second the FBI shut down the cartel.

Everything else was just temporary.

And that’s what Tammy told herself after another case closed, another day testing her emotional distance from their victims, and now all she wanted to do was go back to her hotel, collapse into bed, and mindlessly listen to whatever was on the television. Maybe order some food. Try to finally find that mosquito that had snuck its way back into her room again.

She was just walking out the door with LaSalle, pushing his buttons about the girl who’d been texting. And calling. And showing up on their case. And then here she was again. All big eyes and blonde hair, and yeah Tammy could definitely see how LaSalle had gone for her during that jazz festival two years ago. Still, her bed was calling her name, and she was not up for pleasantries.  

“Oh, is this one of your coworkers?” the woman asked cheerfully, and just like that Tammy was pulled into the conversation. Which wasn’t so bad once she noticed the adorable baby in the stroller, his chubby finger pointing at her as he waved around a plastic toy.

“And who’s this little one?” she practically cooed. For all her bravado, cute babies broke through her barriers instantly. In fact, she was just starting to let herself relax, grinning at the toddler, thinking maybe the rest of the day would be stress free when she heard the woman respond:

“Christopher’s son.”

And the smile dropped off of her face in an instant.

It was like the ground dropped out from under her for a second.

When she looked at LaSalle standing next to her, his expression looked much the same. Well. At least she knew why he’d been acting so weird all afternoon.

“What the hell,” she mouthed, uncertain that a raise of her eyebrows would communicate just the level of… Well she didn’t know what she was feeling, but it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

“Later,” he whispered emphatically as the woman in front of them continued fussing over the baby. LaSalle’s son.

This was too much.

“Well, it was nice meeting you,” Tammy said to her now, forcing a smile. “I’d better let you two catch up.”

And even though she could feel LaSalle shooting her a look, she gave a little wave and was off. As she hurried down the side street next to the office, her mind was reeling.

It didn’t even occur to her that just a few weeks ago she wouldn’t have cared less about this surprise.

 

* * *

 “Okay,” Tammy said the next morning, propping a hand on the corner of LaSalle’s desk. He was gripping a pair of scissors absently as he scrolled through his email, studiously avoiding the look of the woman next to him. “Can I give you some friendly advice?”

“No.”

“Good, because I don’t have any.”

“Don’t have any what?” Percy called out, breezing into the office, dropping her backpack next to her chair.

“Patience to deal with the paperwork LaSalle was supposed to do last night.” Tammy raised her eyebrows at him before pushing off his desk and returning to her own. She may not be well versed in all the subtleties of the team, but she could read between the lines enough to know that there was certainly something between the two agents. And if he hadn’t told Percy about his secret child, well… She wasn’t inclined to get involved.

At least that’s what she told herself.

 


	6. Outlaws

Okay.

The whole “not getting involved” thing was becoming more complicated than Tammy had anticipated. 

For one thing, LaSalle was hopeless.

Tammy was beginning to suspect he was more hopeless than men already were on a base level. That morning she slipped into the office, standing quietly long enough to watch him pull a football off his shelf and cradle it like a child. And even though she told herself she should stay quiet, that this was none of her business, she found herself saying, “Aww, what’s he gonna be when he grows up? A basketball?”

When LaSalle emphatically claimed that he didn’t even know what a sippy cup was—seriously, hopeless—she nearly felt pity for him. But quickly she edged back into her mantra, words she said out loud almost as often as she repeated them to herself, that she was back in D.C. in “about a minute and a half,” that this wasn’t her problem, her fight. 

“Problem is you’re the only one that knows.”

That _was_ the problem. Because teasing LaSalle? That was one thing. Being the only person privy to the fact that he was the father of a literal child? That was something else entirely.

Because for another thing, there was Percy.

And even though the woman owned far too many plaid shirts for there to be a heterosexual explanation, there was certainly… something between her and LaSalle. Tammy hadn’t been able to pinpoint what exactly it was—she had only been doing the mental calculus on it from a professional standpoint, nothing more—but whatever it was it ran deeper than pet names and teasing. And definitely would be complicated by a secret love child.

Which is why she found herself telling LaSalle to tell Pride, to tell “Country Mouse,” anyone besides her. And if she got a secret satisfaction from pretending not to know that Percy was actually City Mouse, well that was her business.

Unlike this secret child. Who, if Percy’s penchant for showing up every time they were discussing him and eyeing them suspiciously continued, wouldn’t be secret much longer. 

 

* * *

Something was up.

Sonja had noticed that immediately. She knew LaSalle too well, trusted Gregorio too little, and was more than willing to snoop through the kitchen window to try to figure out what was going on between them. Even if Pride told her that LaSalle would come to them when he was ready (when he was _ready_? He had told _FBI_ for god’s sake).

A tiny voice in the back of her mind kept poking at the topic as they investigated the biker murder that had come in that day. The case didn’t bring back the greatest memories of her time at ATF, but it was almost enough to distract her from the pointed looks Gregorio kept shooting LaSalle and the stab of betrayal worming its way into her stomach. The case seemed simple enough, with a turf war dating back years and plenty of bad blood on both sides.  

That is until a very familiar looking guy tumbled past with a group of the Niners.

“Know him, I take it?” Gregorio said now, the smirk in her voice grating at Sonja.

“Sort of…” she said, pushing at the wall of memories threatening to overwhelm her, trying to keep her voice level. “Name’s Ramon." 

“Ramon?” There was the smirk, the overemphasis on the roll of the ‘r’ in Ramon, the raised eyebrow. Sonja could practically feel her guard going up as she tried to brush him off as merely a contact she’d worked when she was undercover. Nothing more.

The team ran through the rest of the details on the case, and Pride divvied out their responsibilities. The smug look on Gregorio’s face was almost enough for her protest being assigned background with her, but she just rolled her shoulders back and shot her a glare in return.

“Overly casual response, one sided shoulder shrug, lowered voice. I know a good cover when I see it… I’m a profiler, remember?” she added, as if sensing Sonja’s protests before she could make them.

“Yeah, obviously not a good one,” she shot back, making a grab for the keys in her hand. “I’m driving.”

As she stalked around to the driver’s side of the car she could still feel the other woman giving her a skeptical look, but like everything else she pushed it away and tried to keep focused on the case. 

 

* * *

Tammy felt just the slightest bit guilty poking at the other agent’s secrets, when god knows she had plenty of her own (not to mention LaSalle’s), but the drive back to the office was slower than usual and frankly she had nothing better to do. She stayed quiet the first few blocks, sending a few work emails back to Isler and some other FBI people, watching Percy strangle the steering wheel in her peripheral vision. It was almost too easy—she had _clearly_ had a thing with this Ramon character.

“So,” she said, dragging out the syllable as they caught yet another red light and Percy sighed through her nose. “Tell me about this ATF op.”

“No,” Percy said flatly, hands still wringing the steering wheel. She barely even glanced away from the light.

“It could be relevant to the case,” Tammy said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sure you know all about my time with ATF, little miss FBI.”

She had to admit she had a point. She’d been through a few of the case files when she’d been investigating them, teasing out whether Percy was the kind of agent who would turn on her agency. There certainly hadn’t been anything about _Ramon_ in the files she had seen though, and it was driving her a bit up the wall that Percy wouldn’t just admit what was so plainly clear.

Still, something kept her from pressing her luck just now.

“Fair enough,” was all she said as they finally turned into the alley by the office. Both got out without another word. 

 

* * *

“I think I’ve got something,” Gregorio said finally, reaching across the desk for the remote for the monitor. Sonja looked up from her computer as the other woman pulled up old case files about the veterans’ biker gang. They had been working in a not quite uncomfortable quiet for a while now, passing ideas back and forth as they combed through the records of both gangs. Blessedly, Gregorio had laid off on questions about Ramon, but Sonja could tell her smug certainty about being able to read her so easily was still lurking. She kept waiting for another snide remark or sideways look, but more than that she couldn’t shake the feeling that Ramon shouldn’t be in New Orleans. She’d given him an out last time, but here he was again. And she wasn’t so sure it was an innocent coincidence.

Shaking that thought away, she turned to what Gregorio was saying now about a neighborhood the veterans had been invested in years ago.

“Yeah, right after that jerk stole the Katrina funds,” Sonja said, crossing her arms.

“McKinley,” Gregorio added.

“How do you know about that?”

“Long story,” she replied, waving it off and moving right back to the case.

Something about her voice, about her knowing who McKinley was at all, threw Sonja off though. What else was New York hiding?

 

* * *

Letting the name McKinley slip out had been a mistake. Tammy knew that as soon as it had happened. So, as the two walked down the hallway to autopsy, waiting for another possible lead on the case, she knew she was playing with fire by bringing up the whole Ramon thing again. She was dying to know though, to be right, to be vindicated.

“What?” Percy snapped at the arched eyebrow look she was giving her now.

“Just saying you know I know.”

“Know you know _what_?”

Another stop with the bullshit look.

“Girl, you need to get a life,” Percy scoffed as she came to a stop in the middle of the hallway.

“Sorry, my life’s back in D.C. This is all I got,” Tammy replied with a shrug.

And yes, looking back, accusing her outright of sleeping with him was another mistake. A push too far in their back and forth. An error made immediately clear when the other woman threw McKinley back in her face.

When she didn’t reply, Percy narrowed her eyes.

“Looks like I’m not the only one with secrets.”

The words hung in the air between them as they stared each other down under the crackling lights. It was a challenge, but it also seemed like an invitation. For what, Tammy wasn’t sure. Her smirk didn’t leave her face though, even as Loretta came down the hallway, bringing them back to work and the case at hand.

Still, you didn’t get to keep so many secrets without learning how to tell who else was too.

 

* * *

_“Don’t worry, I got your back.”_

For some reason, those were the words Sonja held with her as she found herself going undercover again. She didn’t know how Ramon would react to seeing her again, or if he would even have anything helpful to reveal, but somehow she knew that no matter what happened the agent who had been teasing her all day would be there if anything went wrong. 

 

* * *

Tammy was not a fan of Patton’s van.

She had made as much clear to him as they set up, but he was unfazed by her disdain for its gaudy decorations and overall vibe. To be honest, she hadn’t spoken to Patton as much as she had the others on the team—and she certainly trusted his methods the least—but they’d come to have a kind of grudging respect for each other. A back and forth she found herself settling into just as she had the rest of the team.

Not too settled though—D.C. was still in the back of her mind.

Right now, though, there were more pressing matters at hand. Such as the potentially dangerous undercover operation she had volunteered Percy for. As she tried to settle into the van, she told herself that the unease she felt as the other agent made her way into the bar had everything to do with the uncertainty of the plan and absolutely nothing to do with the way she looked right now.

Because that would make things even more complicated than her life already was.

“What is she doing?” Patton said now as Percy’s voice came through the wire. It was pitched low, seductive, and Tammy immediately knew she had been right about her and Ramon sleeping together. That didn’t stop her from feeling grossed out when the talking stopped and the kissing started though—honestly, there were few sounds worse to hear over a wire.

As the conversation finally picked up again, she had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. The smooth tone of Ramon’s words rubbed her the wrong way, and while she was one to trust hard facts over gut feelings, she had a sense that Percy had left out more than just the nature of her relationship with Ramon. And when he let slip that she had tipped him off before the ATF raid, well… Tammy was pulling out her phone to call her contacts at the FBI before she could even finish that thought.

She found herself telling Patton to hack ATF’s records— “For Percy’s sake,” she justified, to herself or him, she wasn’t sure—but his eyes were already lighting up as he got to work.

Both dead ends.

The feeling that something bad was lurking just around the corner only got heavier as Ramon tried to cajole Percy into leaving the bar with him to meet some other bikers.

And as she heard Percy surrender her knife right before the line crackled out she didn’t think twice before pulling off her button-down shirt and kicking her way into the bar.

It was too late, though.

She was gone. 

 

* * *

“You were supposed to have her back.”

LaSalle’s words dug at Tammy—and she had to admit he wasn’t wrong, even if there was nothing she could have done to prevent the other agent from being whisked away short of blowing her cover on the authority of nothing but a bad feeling.

That familiar thread of guilt pulled at her as they tried to puzzle out where Ramon might have taken her—and it was clear now that he was embroiled in this elaborate scheme to stoke a war between the veterans and the Niners—and maybe that was why she slipped up as Pride mentioned an old neighborhood McKinley had been poking around.

“If memory serves,” she said of his involvement. A passing remark but LaSalle jumped on it. 

“What do you mean ‘if memory serves’?”

How could she have been so careless?

Pride brushed it off, reminding them of the urgency of the matter at hand, dispatching them to the junkyard where they hoped to find Ramon.

She was running from so many ghosts already. She wouldn’t let Sonja become another one. 

 

* * *

For the second time this week, something was up.

But this junkyard, where Ramon, a man she had once stuck her neck out for, was exchanging money and words with god knows who, was a far cry from whatever had been going on between Gregorio and LaSalle in the office. In fact, whatever LaSalle was hiding was the last thing on Sonja’s mind as she cursed her burner phone for still not having a signal. She tried to stem the panic rising inside her as she realized she had been played. What a fool she was.

And here was Ramon again, smooth talking, treating her as if she couldn’t tell what was going on, couldn’t see that he was more than just a guy who built bikes. She didn’t know what exactly he had gotten himself into, but it was clearly bad.

The roar of another motorcycle filled her ears as she tried to peer around Ramon, his hands roaming and his voice growing more insistent, coercive. Why was he being so forceful? And why were the veterans here now?

Guns were pulled and words were exchanged, but as Sonja tried again to make her way past Ramon the next thing she knew she was thrown against one of the junkers, his breath in her face, his hands trying to pin her to the cold surface of the car.

Instincts kicked in and she shifted her weight, knocking Ramon to the ground before moving closer to the fight. She crouched behind one of the abandoned motorcycles, listening to the threats flying between the gangs. Still no signal on her burner phone. _Shit_.

And then another sound. 

The click of a gun. 

Double shit.

“You’re a cop,” Ramon spit as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to another side of the lot. She could still hear the yelling across the way, the sound of the car crusher roaring as they threatened to destroy someone, and she hoped, prayed, that the team would find her somehow.

She tried to keep him talking, tried to focus on slowing her heart rate even as she raised her arms in a show of surrender. There was a flash of movement off to the side, but she kept her eyes trained on Ramon and the gun pointed at her.

“You don’t have a choice,” he said, hand tightening around his weapon.

“Don’t I?” Sonja replied, raising an eyebrow.

Another click of a gun.

And there was Gregorio, moving out of the shadows, disarming Ramon with ease. She looked disheveled, hair frizzy, shoulders tense, but her wry smile was the most welcome sight Sonja had seen all day.

“I told you I got your back.”


	7. interlude: god forbid

It was late. Jazz music floated in from the street, wrapping the otherwise empty office in its easy embrace. It was strange that this proximity to New Orleans life, which had once been Tammy’s least favorite thing about the office, was almost soothing now. Plus, the smooth sounds of the brass meant that neither she nor Percy felt the need to fill the silence as they wrapped up paperwork for the night. Honestly, the reports could have waited, but Tammy found it oddly comforting to have something to focus on after such a stressful case. And besides, neither woman really wanted to be alone right now.

She heard Percy rifling through drawers, looking for something, and then she heard a confused, “Hey, what’s this doing in LaSalle’s desk?” 

She glanced up to see her holding a pacifier, forehead wrinkled, voice pitched evenly.

“You oughta ask City Mouse,” she replied.

“Country Mouse.”

“Yeah…” she said quietly.

“What do you know?” Suspicion, concern, a touch of betrayal.

“Just that I’m not gonna get involved.”

Tammy could have left it at that—it wasn’t her secret to tell, they didn’t need to have a heart to heart, they were barely friendly to each other on the best of days—but she found that she didn’t want to. Guilt chased her at every turn, but she didn’t want that for Sonja. Sometimes things happened that you just couldn’t blame yourself for no matter how much you wanted to.

“So, you okay…” she started, moving toward the other agent’s desk almost without meaning to. “About Ramon?”

As she perched on the edge of the desk, she could tell that Percy was beating herself up. About letting Ramon go all those years ago, about being played. About falling for him at all. The look on her face was so familiar it almost hurt—if Tammy were the kind of person to let herself get emotionally involved. Still, she felt a pinch of guilt for all of her teasing, which is why she found herself saying—

“We might have more in common than you think, Percy.”

She told her about McKinley.

And it was almost nice to let someone in, to be honest. And Sonja wasn’t running, wasn’t blaming her.

It was almost nice.

“Hey, uh, this wasn’t us bonding, right?” Percy asked after a pause.

“Oh, god forbid, no,” Tammy replied.

But they were both smiling as she returned to her own desk.

 


	8. interlude: want you tired every day, cause i run through your brain

It was dark, Sonja’s head was pounding, and she had no idea where she was. One second, she had been walking down the street, feeling irritated about something she couldn’t remember now, and the next thing she knew she was in a dusty, abandoned lot. Trying to keep her breathing steady, she glanced over her shoulder to take in her surroundings. All she saw was dirt and more darkness though, a feeling of unease creeping over her. She tried to shake it off, turning around again, and suddenly Ramon was there. He was smiling, but there was something menacing about it. Then, she noticed the gun in his hand. Pointed at her. She tried to run, but her legs wouldn’t work.

As he pulled the trigger, she woke up. 

“Shit,” she muttered, exhaling slowly as she looked up at her bedroom ceiling. She tried to remind her racing heart what had really happened next. She hadn’t gotten hurt. Gregorio had had her back.

After one last slow breath, she reached for her phone and groaned when she saw the time. Only an hour until she had to get up.

It was just as well, she thought, it wasn’t like she was getting back to sleep any time soon anyway.

Settling back under the covers, Sonja tried to distract her mind from any lingering thoughts of Ramon and just how royally she had screwed up. She pictured sitting in the office, music drifting in, Sebastian rambling, LaSalle teasing.

LaSalle. That stupid pacifier in his desk. How he felt he could confide whatever it was going on with him to Gregorio and not to her. Despite everything they had been through.

Okay. Think of something else. Anything else.

For some reason, the first thing that came to mind was Gregorio smirking at her over her afternoon cup of coffee. Ever since that night with Ramon, they had been almost… friends. Even though they’d both roll their eyes at the thought, she couldn’t deny how she found herself listening a little closer when she had an idea or turning to offer to grab her something on a lunch run. It was nice not to be the only woman around the office, and Sonja was getting used to her annoying profiler tactics, New York brashness, and admittedly well-timed arched eyebrows.

As she started to doze off, already dreading her alarm, she hoped that it would be a while longer yet before the other woman left New Orleans for good.

 

* * *

“I come bearing gifts,” Tammy called out as she dropped her bag onto her desk. She followed the sounds of Pride’s voice into the kitchen and set the brown paper bag she was carrying onto the table where he was sitting. Percy was leaning against the counter opposite him, nodding at whatever he was saying about the band that had played his bar that weekend. Once her eyes caught sight of the bag though, her full attention was on Tammy.

“If you tell me there are beignets in that bag, I will love you forever,” she said now, her voice gravely serious.

“I’d settle for a cup of coffee,” Tammy replied with a smirk, pushing the bag toward her. 

“That I can do.”

As Percy pulled a mug from the dish rack and Tammy settled into another seat at the table, Pride shot a look her way. Questioning with a hint of pleasant surprise.

“It’s Monday. I figured everyone could use a pick me up, and the cafe was on my way,” she said with a shrug before he could ask. The first half was true at least. She’d slept horribly the night before, waking up more than once to escape the nightmares that were plaguing her. She was used to most of them—there were only so many ways her subconscious could torture her about the mistakes she’d made when she was younger—but there had been a new one in the mix. A very particular one that left her checking her texts to make sure that a certain agent was very much alive and not, you know, murdered by a biker.

So yes, it was Monday, and everyone could use a pick me up. Least of all herself. She was glad that Pride didn’t press her further, was glad for the warm mug of coffee in her hands, and she was definitely glad for the smile Percy shot her way as she dug into the beignet bag.

For purely professional reasons, of course.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from "wanna be missed" by hayley kiyoko bc i had it on repeat during this chapter


	9. Music to My Ears

“You okay?” LaSalle asked a few days later as Sonja slammed the car door, rushing to catch up with her as she breezed across the street to the crime scene of the day.

When she’d dropped by to pick LaSalle up on the way to work that morning, she was expecting it to be the perfect opportunity to catch up, maybe to grill him about the secrets he’d been keeping from her lately, maybe to talk to him about Gregorio. 

Or so she had thought until a pretty blonde wearing an oversized Alabama t-shirt answered the door.

And then there was LaSalle. Holding a baby. Talking to this woman about said baby’s diaper.

This woman answering his door in his t-shirt.

And suddenly all the pieces had fallen into place.

So. No, she was not okay.

“Peachy,” she said now, not breaking her stride.

“Because you didn’t a word on the way over here.”

“Don’t have any words.”

The genuine confusion in his voice almost made her madder than the situation itself.

“I’m not mad,” she said now as he pushed further.

“You seem mad.” 

She laughed a little to herself. Of course she was mad. He had a child. A _child_. And he’d been keeping this somewhat significant detail from her for weeks, for god knows how long. And here he was now rattling off about how something seemed off, about his personal life. It was just too much. 

“What you do in your personal life isn’t my business,” Sonja said, turning on him as they entered the apartment where the crime scene was. “Just like it’s not my business that you told everyone else on the team about your love child _except_ me.”

The acid in her voice left him silent for a moment as she turned on her heel and started upstairs.

“So, wait,” he called softly. “You are mad.”

It took everything in her not to bang her head against the wall. 

 

* * *

 “Nice of you to show up, Gregorio,” Percy said as she ducked under the crime scene tape at the top of the stairs. Tammy was almost taken aback at the ice in the other agent’s voice, but one look at LaSalle’s pinched forehead, downturned mouth, and careful distance from her and she was pretty sure his secret baby was secret no more.

“Well, FBI’s still my day job. You guys are more of a hobby,” she said now, making a mental note to talk to Sonja later. It was clear that Pride was already well into his briefing on the scene, so she stayed quiet and scanned the room as he wrapped up. Although she took note of the overturned furniture and the blood the techs were photographing, there was something else on her mind. 

“So, FBI thinks we’re getting close on the Ciudad Natal case,” she said as she followed Pride onto the balcony at the back of the apartment. “Isler wants to make a break by Thanksgiving.” 

She said it nonchalantly, but she could still picture the meeting she’d just left with Isler. The pressure was on, and while a break in the case on the cartel was a good thing—was the whole reason she’d been landed in New Orleans in the first place—she’d had a sinking feeling in her stomach as he stressed the new timeline to her. She didn’t feel quite ready to leave the city, or the people, just yet, but she’d nodded over her Styrofoam cup of weak coffee like the good agent she was.

“That’s soon,” Pride said evenly as he peered into another window. 

“Gives me an excuse to avoid family,” Tammy replied with a shrug. She might have stopped running from her past, but there were bridges even she wasn’t thrilled—or willing—to cross just yet. 

Pride was just assuring her she was welcome to join his Thanksgiving dinner, once again not pressing her to talk but being generous just the same, when Sebastian called up from the courtyard below. With his camera in hand and his rushed voice, he seemed more restless than usual. Tammy had gotten used to his rambles and enthusiasm, but she felt a flash of disbelief and protectiveness as he made a move to check out the muted crash that had just come from inside. As she and Pride rushed down the stairs, weapons ready, she filed away this uptick in eagerness, the flash of disappointment on Sebastian’s face as he moved out of the way.

Still, she stayed focused on the gun in her hand, training it at the doors to the cellar as Pride inched closer. She’d learned over the years to be prepared for anything, but she was still shocked as Pride pulled the door open to reveal a scared, shaking kid.

 

* * *

It took over an hour to bring the kid back to the office—calming him down, processing him with the tech team, figuring out that the headphones and music he had with him were the key to helping him with the shock—but once they finally found themselves in the kitchen Tammy wasn’t surprised to find Pride’s fatherly instincts kicking in. She had just poured herself a cup of coffee when he started busting out the ingredients for his legendary pancakes. As she sat across from the kid, taking in the tension in his shoulders and the faraway look in his eye, she once again found herself grateful for the place she’d fallen into in New Orleans. A pleasant surprise.

“I’m gonna miss your cooking and your coffee,” she said as Pride slid a plate of still steaming pancakes onto the table. “The stuff at the FBI is swill.”

"That sounds like a goodbye,” he replied, his face taking on an expression she was now familiar with—thoughtful, appraising, waiting for the other person to say more without pressuring them. It was part of what made him such a good agent, even if she did still have some reservations about the messiness of some of his methods. 

“Well, with the cartel business wrapping up, I imagine I’ll be back in D.C. soon.” She kept her voice level, as even as the look Pride was giving her, even if the thought did leave a strange feeling that she wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge.

She still had time.  

 

* * *

A few hours later, as Tammy was getting ready to head back over to the FBI's office across town, Pride stopped her in the courtyard. 

“I got a space on my team,” he said, nodding back to the office behind them. “If you want it, it’s yours.” 

“Come to work for NCIS?” she asked. Another thing she hadn’t been expecting, and so she said, almost without thinking, “I already have a job.”

For a second, as he asked her to take her time, to at least think about it, she almost let herself imagine what it would be like. Not juggling two positions, not traveling so much, not pushing people away before they could get too close. She almost let herself picture meals at Pride’s table, trash talking with LaSalle, giving herself the chance to get to know Percy. For that brief moment, all the emotions she had worked so hard to divorce from her work, from her life, threatened to break through. And it scared her.

So she found herself saying, almost flippantly, “This was always gonna be temporary, you know.”

Because that was the only way she had allowed herself to get as close as she already had.

 

* * *

Sonja was trying. She was really trying. 

To be professional, to keep her anger in check, to not look too closely at her anger in the first place.

Unfortunately, this case was a lot of walking and waiting, which meant a lot of time to think about things she definitely did not want to think about.

As she and LaSalle doubled back to the block they had just searched for their most recent lead, she had just about distracted herself when he brought the subject up himself. The silent treatment had clearly worked a little too well.

“I’m really surprised I was the last to know,” she said with a scoff. “I thought we were close.”

Because that’s what it really boiled down to. Weird history and close relationship be damned, they were the kind of people who told each other things. And he had told literally everyone else on the team, even someone who technically wasn’t _on_ the team, but not her.

“We are,” he said emphatically, reaching toward her shoulder before seeming to think better of it. She just kept walking. Holding back a yawn, he pressed on into the silence. Going on about how he didn’t know what to do, how he barely got any sleep, how he was already failing as a father.

Somehow, Sonja found herself reassuring him. Even with her anger, she couldn’t bear to see him beat himself up like this.

“You’ve been a father for what? Like a minute?” she said not unkindly, stopping to face him on the sidewalk. “Give yourself a chance.”

The relief that passed over his face and the sigh he let out suggested this was about to become a heart to heart in the middle of the street when the sound of a trumpet caught his ear. A trumpet that the man they were looking for was playing. A few moments later and they were chasing him through an alley, ducking through the crowds, Sonja quickly outpacing LaSalle and managing to tackle the guy before he darted into traffic.

“Nice job, slowpoke,” she said as LaSalle caught up to where she was cuffing the guy. “You really need to get this new daddy thing figured out.”

And so the rest of the day went, cycling between bitterness and support, Sonja unsure how to feel or where they really stood.

 

* * *

Tammy was supposed to be reading through the latest batch of bank statements and routing information that had come through on a possible cartel connection, but her mind kept drifting off to Pride’s offer. And the NCIS job application sitting under a stack of papers on her desk. She’d shoved it under a folder as Isler had popped by earlier to update her on the case, trying to keep her hands and her face even as he talked to her. 

Since he’d left for lunch though, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it.

What would it mean to come back to New Orleans? For good? 

She wasn’t the same woman she’d been when she’d married McKinley, too young and too ready for any escape from her past. But she also wasn’t who she’d been when she’d joined the FBI, still running and still trying anything to ease her guilt.

As her eyes skimmed the documents on her screen, she thought back to that night in Pride’s bar. When she had finally admitted—to him and, more importantly, to herself—that she was tired of running. Maybe it wasn’t about running from one thing to the next anymore, never letting anyone too close, never giving into her emotions. And New Orleans was full of emotions.

Fear, irritation, all those messy moments she told herself she didn’t want. But it wasn’t all bad. New Orleans was also comfort, easiness, a kind of family that maybe she could be a part of. She’d always said not having permanent partners in the FBI kept her focused—case first, feelings never—but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Sticking with the same people through bad and good.

Tammy was just shaking these thoughts away, trying to refocus on her screen, when suddenly she saw Percy striding toward her, a white paper bag in her hand and a smile on her face. Almost without meaning to Tammy found herself smiling back.

“For you,” she said, holding the bag out.

“My hero,” Tammy replied, ignoring the flicker of feeling in her stomach. A very messy feeling.

She thought back to their conversation the evening before, both grasping for leads on their separate cases, the only sounds the clicking of keyboards and the occasional frustrated sigh. They’d been working in comfortable silence for a while when Percy’s sighs became a little angrier than her typical paperwork break exhales. When Tammy looked up she had her head tilted back and her eyes closed, as if searching for an answer to something. Tammy took in the tension in her hands, the way she was biting her bottom lip as if deciding whether to say whatever was on her mind.

 _“Everything okay?” Tammy had asked after a moment’s hesitation. She tried to keep her tone light, to ignore the dip in her stomach that was becoming more frequent as Percy opened her eyes and looked at her._

_“I just don’t get it.”_

_“The case?”_

_“LaSalle.”_

_“Oh.” Tammy paused. She wasn’t sure how to proceed without making the situation worse than it already was. Funny how just weeks ago she hadn’t cared about that kind of thing at all._

_“I mean why did he tell_ you _?” Percy asked, more than a hint of annoyance and betrayal in her voice. As an afterthought she added, “No offense.”_

_“It was an accident,” Tammy replied slowly, mulling over her next words. “And I think it was easier. For him to turn to an outsider, you know? Someone leaving soon, someone less emotionally involved, and not, you know, City Mouse.”_

_Percy considered this, wrinkling her nose slightly before settling on an eye roll._

_“Still. He should have told me.”_

_“Trust me, I told him that. Several times,” Tammy replied, shaking her head. Percy let out one more sigh before turning back to the files in front of her. As she went to pick up her pen, she paused and looked up again._

_“Also, for what it’s worth, I hope you’re not leaving_ that _soon,” she said._

_“Me too,” Tammy said softly. They smiled at each other for a moment before finally returning to their work._

“Do you know anything about Javier Garcia?” Percy was asking now.

“Where did you hear that name?” Tammy had been getting sloppy lately, but she wasn’t sloppy enough to drop classified information like that. Her mind was running a hundred miles a minute as the other woman explained how they had stumbled on the man in their NCIS investigation. As she kept going, Tammy knew she had to warn her off the case, but she didn’t need the prying eyes and ears of the other agents around her desk. Without thinking, she stood up and grabbed Sonja’s wrist, pulling her further down the hall. Of course, the other agent bristled as she asked her to stop investigating Garcia, to not spook him before the FBI had finished gathering evidence on his link to Ciudad Natal. As she left, she had all but assured that NCIS was going to keep following this lead.

New Orleans was never easy.

But maybe that’s why she should stay.

 

* * *

Once again, Tammy followed the sound of Pride’s voice, stopping just before the courtyard, completed application in hand, ready to take the jump.

And then she heard him offer the spot on his team to Sebastian. 

So that’s what he’d been so anxious about throughout the week.

She crumpled up her application, shoved it in the pocket of her jeans, and left without a word—ignoring the questioning looks on LaSalle and Percy’s faces.

She should have known it was too good to be true.


End file.
